Latency

[markmcb]

I hope this isn't too dumb a question. I need to buy a laptop for live use of DP and Superior Drummer. What will affect latency the most...the amount of Ram or the speed of the processor of the laptop ?.
Thanks

[Michael Canavan]

I hope this isn't too dumb a question. I need to buy a laptop for live use of DP and Superior Drummer. What will affect latency the most...the amount of Ram or the speed of the processor of the laptop ?.
Thanks

The speed of the processor affects latency. RAM mainly affects how many sampler instruments you can load into a project.

[mikehalloran]

Spend the extra $ to get the i7 CPU. The floating point processor will speed some DP functions quite a bit; others not at all but overall performance is noticeably better over the i5. I have had the opportunity to do A/B comparisons between otherwise identical Macs running the same DP project to confirm it isn't my imagination.

[David Polich]

While the CPU speed and disk drive type certainly affect latency, what determines the amount of latency is actually the buffer setting. Setting it lower reduces latency, but taxes your computer's CPU more.

I can play virtual instruments with ease with the buffer at 256..some instruments are even okay with
the buffer set to 512. Certainly, at 128 you should be essentially be experiencing no latency at all.

The upcoming DP Next Gen Pre-Gen feature promises to cut latency in half. The update that includes this is scheduled to ship Q2 2016. This is very exciting.

[mikehalloran]

While the CPU speed and disk drive type certainly affect latency, what determines the amount of latency is actually the buffer setting. Setting it lower reduces latency, but taxes your computer's CPU more.

I can play virtual instruments with ease with the buffer at 256..some instruments are even okay with
the buffer set to 512. Certainly, at 128 you should be essentially be experiencing no latency at all...

Most of us assume that everyone know this so we don't bring it up. David is right that this is the most important factor.

[markmcb]

Thanks for all the help. I will definitely get a laptop with the i7 chip.

[dewdman42]

Are you going to be using a MIDI drum kit? MIDI latency and jitter can also be a factor if so.

More CPU is a good idea, it will enable you to lower the buffer setting, which is ultimately what determines the latency as everyone said. Supposedly the DP9.02 update will have lower latency. Personally I think as a drummer you may notice some lag at 256 samples, but maybe not after the update. 128 samples you should be fine, with less then 10ms latency and supposedly half that after the DP update.

However, MIDI latency and jitter can also be a factor. If you're gonna use a MIDI kit, I highly recommend you use some kind of firewire or other non-USB MIDI device. I use a motu traveler for my live use...and old one.. it is firewire and has a MIDI port on it, and I get noticeably more responsive MIDI from that compared to when I try to use a USB MIDI interface. I'm pretty sensitive to timing that way, and as a drummer, if you're playing a MIDI kit..I think you will notice it too..

[Killahurts]

I just want to be clear on what this new pre-gen thing will do.

It's my understanding that I will be able to lower my buffer settings because of it. But the latency will still be controlled by the buffer setting, i.e. it won't give me added speed against the buffer will it?

Does it individually lower the buffer for only the Virtual Instruments that are MIDI record enabled?

I sit at 256 all the time. If I could go to 128 or lower and have the same performance, I'd be really happy, however it's done.

I just read a press release where MOTU is touting the 120 Cinesample instruments again, and the thought occurred to me, what computer were they running that on? My guess is $10k top of the line Mac Pro with everything..

[dewdman42]

Next gen pre gen is not going to help this situation of live use unless a MIDI track is being played from the sequencer. That will reduce cpu overhead if so. It has no impact on latency whatsoever other then that if cpu use is reduced it might be possible to manually lower the buffer setting and get lower latency globally. Latency is always fixed to the buffet size. It doesn't fluctuate and is the same for all tracks.